


Love

by Kodawari



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Seriously big spoilers you have been warned, just a heads up for y'all, not a ship fic despite the title and characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 11:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kodawari/pseuds/Kodawari
Summary: BIG SPOILERS!!!!!!Revised 4/30/2019Tony's ego was the thing that always got him into trouble, but maybe, this time, things will be different.





	Love

**Present day**

His left wrist is aching again. A dull and deep pain that spikes when he's panicked. Sometimes he dreams his arm is crushed and charred. Deep to the bone pain. Pain that goes deeper still into his psyche, his soul. 

Pain that's shared for what feels like this lifetime and beyond. Forever and ever pain.

It's been seeping throughout his body recently, in his nightmares. The fingers on his right hand feel odd sometimes. 

But right now he ignores it. Morgan's first smile. It's the most precious thing in all this condemned earth. He can stay here in this moment forever. If anyone asks, he's found his place in the universe and even the world on fire won't budge him. He's found his Elysian Field. 

This is for him. 

**One day after Sokovia**

It's a presence he can't shake. Imposing and intelligent, ruthless. It started after the Wormhole. After Ultron it pings back to him when he tries to go deeper into the recesses of his damaged mind, a lonesome Argonaut trying to find the healing Golden Fleece. Can't get that unless you slay the monster but that monster is getting closer and closer each day and he's not sure he can be healed. Maybe he should let it devour him. Maybe he should tell it to fuck off, he's Tony Stark, dammit. But it stirs in the deep, waiting. He needs Pepper. She's his only balm now.

...Waiting. 

_He saw their bodies on the hill. The culmination of his actions._

**New York, 2012**

He's shaking. He's going to die in the outer reaches of space. He knows how Dave felt in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is full of stars. It should be beautiful, but its cold, and his family won't have a body to bury or cremate or even hope for. His family is dead, he remembers, but his mom is right there, glowing and alive and dad...he can forgive him, just this once. 

Later his victory is Pyrrhic. People hail him a hero, you saved us all, you're like a god. But he finds he can't breath sometimes. The only thing keeping him going some days is his pride. 

Other days he just wants to slip into a coma and forget. Forget he's Tony Stark. 

**The End**

Tony Stark, _former_ playboy, billionaire, philanthropist, dad, possible savior of the whole universe is like a fly trapped in the vast whiteness of a bowl of milk. He has no idea where he is or how, but something worked. His dad said something about the greater good and his own ego and he knows they don't have to be separate anymore. He is Iron Man and he is the greatest good this world has ever seen. He's Howard Stark's greatest creation, he's the leader of the Avengers, he's Pepper's husband and Morgan's dad, he's the guy who made a some kid from Queens an Avenger. He's Tony Stark, not the wizard who gave up his worldly side, not Banner who had to compromise with Hulk. No, he's Tony Stark and he's at peace with that. No one can tell him otherwise. He just hopes he has enough time left for Pepper to say something contradictory about it. She always brought him down to earth, an angel in reverse. Better than any angel who dares say otherwise.

You think you're inevitable, Death? Well, I'm Iron Man. And I don't need a suit to prove it.

Funny. His left arm was always the one in pain...he thought this was why...but 

He can't say I love you to her, or tell the kid it's ok. But she says he can rest now. Rest. From all he's done, from all they'll ever do. He has to let go of them, but that's easy once it's said and done. 

It's letting go of himself that's the hardest. 

Everything fades to white. 

**Night before the snap**

Tony has a kid. He can't tell if it's a girl or a boy, does it matter? It's his kid. Their kid. He loves it so much and he'd give everything of himself to make it safe. He'd give up everything. He's never felt so much love in his life, so when he wakes up it feels like something's been ripped from him, like a limb is missing. He lived another life somewhere else in the future. It's impossible he knows, but he can't explain that feeling. He's going to tell Pepper. She won't believe him, but he can't keep a dream, a reality, like that to himself. 

…

Other Tonys have tried. Others didn't make it to the final battle. Others offed themselves long before. Almost all the others used their left hand. Over and over again, but the cards weren't lined up right to begin with and failure was inevitable. Even that rat in the van had to line up. Even that of all the little things that could have gone wrong.

Stephen Strange had to watch him die each time. Felt the echos of the different futures tremble through to their past, entangled as particles are, as waves criss-crossing throughout reality at a quantum scale.

Only this Tony made it. Only this Tony found the time to talk to his father, to reconcile with a living ghost. 

Only this Tony had the hope to bring Morgan into being. His legacy, the blood of his blood and his greatest creation. 

His ego was big to begin with, but part of it was missing. He needed love. To be loved, to give love. 

That, in the end, saved them all.


End file.
